


The Right To Call It Home

by cerebrobullet



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4860722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerebrobullet/pseuds/cerebrobullet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at a friendship in a distant time and world, before there was a Blackrock, Honeydew Inc, or Duncan’s Lab.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right To Call It Home

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration/mood music: [North by Bastille](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byHSQoemFvI)

The Enderborn has walked the world for a very, very long time. He’s come across many people before, of course. Small groups or single travelers. Many are hostile, some are kind. They travel a distance together or perhaps settle their houses on neighboring hills. Towns grow, cities spread, and while he stays to see these things, no one can hold him long. He's a ghost, barely seen or known by those around him. A legend of shadows, a myth on the edges of worlds and places. A pause for a year, for a decade; he settles quietly, and picks up again without a word, without a glance behind. There is word of him that passes around fires in the dead of night. He walks farther still until there is quiet around him and the evidence of him vanishes like the light in a house long abandoned.

But when he runs into the three of them, there is a pull. The Scientist pushes his welding goggle up his face and waves, dirt smearing his pale face and outlining blue eyes. He smiles wide and talks earnestly, asks questions and listens to the answers. The other two seem an odd pair, a tiny Dwarf and towering Spaceman. The tall one looks out of place wherever he stands, but still fits so well with the other. There’s something between them, the Spaceman and the Dwarf. Attached, always near and always aware of each other. The Scientist looks at them from a distance, reserved, unsure. A budding friendship, the Enderborn believes.

There are lots of scars among them, lots of stories between them. He likes the ones with stories.

They're building here, they explain, in this valley. Good resources, good caves. The Enderborn agrees and says he'll likely be near by as well. They split with handshakes and promises to keep in touch. He has heard the promise many times, seen it forgotten in minutes, but he does keep close. A hill with a view grows a new tower on its crest. His eyes often drift to the valley of houses below him.

They are like magnets, others come to them. A wild looking man with long hair and pointed ears. He wanders in the woods nearby and appears at dusk, but smiles and talks easy with each of them. There's an energy in his eyes that pulls the Enderborn in, that sends warnings off in his mind he feels apt to ignore.

A girl, fiery red hair, her pack spilling over with herbs and trees and plants, who walks in at high noon and closes the day with a new hut filled with life. Everything around her grows strong under her care and they all sample her vegetables and fruits on the hot summer days, enjoying the shade of her trees and tall mushrooms. There are wildflowers the Enderborn has never seen before. He picks some to grow by his door.

The valley grows, just as has happened before. Woods and trees, metals and stones, twisting together and apart, spilling over the grass and through forests, to the caves below and clouds above. But his tower still sits high and people still walk to his door. Gifts of food, too numerous for him to finish alone. Gifts of stones and crystals, of magic items the others can't use and freely send to him. The smiling Scientist, who always has something new to show him, who waits at the door until he’s followed down to the valley, into the cool sprawl of his laboratory to present the new discovery on display.

But things begin to slow, as they do. The earth stops giving, the trees begin to wither, the offers slow. The caves stand lit but empty, the ground dry. The world turns quiet. It’s a tiresome cycle played again and again through time, and a flaw in life that the Enderborn has long since sworn off preventing. He sits in his home, his lights still burning in the night, but the door stays closed for many days. Slowly, he begins to pack, to stash away the best of his things. There’s little to cry over, he thinks. The ritual is the same as always, the same path he’s walked since dawn. Follow the path, flow with shadows and fade away again into another future, another space. Another land to watch crumble under overuse.

He pinches a wildflower between his fingers, and twirls it slowly, eyes locked on the unlit darkness beyond the windows. He wishes to see lights again. He wishes to see the Scientist's wide blue eyes peering thoughtfully at him across the threshold.

The light of dawn tips over the horizon, and spreads across the quiet land, warming empty rooms.

There’s a knock on the door. It’s an old sound, an unfamiliar echo in the vacant room. It swings open before he can reach it, and the Scientist walks in. He is bare of items, no tools, no pack, just gloved hands that rest easily on his waist.

Are you coming? he asks. Are you going with us?

The Enderborn tells him he plans on leaving, yes. He motions to packed bags, his eyes trace the empty corners of the room, the cleaned tables. The Scientist laughs.

What are you packing for? You can’t take anything with you, he says. There is a silence between them.

We’re not leaving the valley, we’re leaving the world, he explains. There’s somewhere knew for them to go, somewhere with fresh resources, with things undiscovered, with mysteries to untwist.

The Enderborn knows of other worlds. He has dipped his fingers into them before, scryed other hims. His eyes had seen unknown sights, his mind fathomed foreign worlds and laws, but never had he stepped into them before. He feels a tingle in his fingers, a shiver races along his spine.

With silence still heavy, the Scientist steps closer.

You’ll come, won’t you? There’s nothing worth staying here for, it’s the same for miles. Aren’t you curious?

He is curious. He is enraptured by the idea, but his deep blue eyes release no secrets. He shakes his head, no.

The Scientist is quieted and tries to shrug the idea aside. His shoulder sag from the weight, his eyes cast down, tracing the twisting paths of stones at his feet. The silence pushes him to step backwards and the Enderborn looks aside. He can feel blue eyes on him.

Well we’ll miss you, the Scientist says.

The words hang there, in the empty room. A flash of light in shadow. A moment too small to catch, as the Enderborn looks back to the guest who has already turned and fled. The door shuts. Dust leaks from rocky crags, floats in dim sunlight that fills the room.

Fingers are knead into knees, the mage sitting stiff backed in his lone chair. We’ll miss you. He thinks the words over. Will you tell stories too? he thinks. Will my shadow linger with you wherever you go? No, you will forget just the same, just as they all do. I will be your myth.

The memories of smiling faces pass through his mind in a parade of old memories. The dead, the lost, the abandoned. Neighbors, rivals, friends. None of it is different, none of it changes through years of life. The same ritual, the same places, the same stories.

He stands, he swings his pack over his shoulder, and he pushes through the door. Long strides across the stones, on to the earth, the road away again. He takes a moment to linger outside, in the fresh light. The silent valley sits as it always has. Rivers of paths carved between far flung houses and work areas. Large oaks lovingly grown from seeds dotted between the stone and wood shelters. Little touches in every corner. Favorite flowers, planted and grown beneath windows. Rows of gardens with favorite foods, signs tacked to houses and gates with messages scrawled in fading text.

A bonfire still leaks smoke from dying embers. He thinks about the girl with fiery red hair.

A tangled vine pulls itself along a falling fence, intertwining with the boards, devouring. He thinks about the man with Wild Hair and his frantic energy.

He sees the Spaceman in the black shadowed puddles, which catch the light between the leaves, like tiny stars floating as reflections in their depths.

The Dwarf is in the stack of iron bars at the silent forge, a golden glow slipping slowly along their edges, a mirror of the growing light.

A shadow shifts beneath the trees, and the sun sparks off two wide blue eyes. The Enderborn twists his fingers around his pack’s straps. His mind thinks to turn away, to start the walk along the hill. Leave behind the small tower, the empty rooms, the wildflowers by the door. Find the next place of comfort, the next friendly face, the next story.

His heart holds his feet fast. His heart wonders if there isn’t a story he’ll be missing by leaving. It makes him think of the many faces who entered his door, the many nights together, the many foods and words shared. His name that passed their lips, his face they came to know, his likes they understood. The waiting at the door, the walk along the criss crossed paths. Shared hopes, shared treasure, shared lives.

He walks.

He walks down, down the hill, to the path, to the valley, to the mist and shadow and the blue eyes and blond hair.

His pack slips from his shoulder to the ground. There's nothing to prepare, nothing he can bring. Another rebirth, another journey, but none like the Enderborn has taken before. There's excitement in him, there's a bubble of fear within. An unknown stretches before him. Something new, somewhere new. Across from him, the Scientist smiles. See you there, he says, and with a flicker, his body fades from view. The loneliness settles like the morning mist, and the Enderborn breathes of it deeply. One last time, he thinks. He chews his lip to keep the smile contained, so scared to let it grow, to fall into the feeling of warmth that edges in. He closes his eyes, breathes out again, and lets go of existence.

The world is black.

The world is red.

Red? Red. The red of sunlight on eyelids. There’s the prickle of grass under his head, the soft curl of wind across his face. He opens his eyes to blue sky. Sitting up, all around, new. New plants, new trees. New caves and seas, new animals. He knows no name for many of them yet, knows no rules, but he has all the time to learn them. In the shadows others walk, in the sun they bask and sit. Gather wood in their arms, hoist picks on their shoulders. Familiar faces. A hand grabs his sleeve and tugs and he rises with it, blinking, wide eyed at Lalna. Lalna bubbles with excitement, an array of tools on his belt, his new outfit ruffled and dirty. He guides, points, explains. Here's a place to set up your house, here's a rubber tree, this makes pipes, this is magical. Rythian can feel new magics pulsing around him, feels the call of crystals below his feet, of their currents in the air. It burns in him, sets every nerve alight like he hasn’t felt in centuries. He settles his hands on his hips, digs his toes into the dirt, and breathes deeply of the fresh air.

This is the new world, the new home, the new life.

This was the Old World.


End file.
